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Egg Pancakes

A batter of flour, sweet milk, salt, eggs, fried in butter, served with apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Egg Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour, sweet milk, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Separate the eggs; add the beaten yolks to the batter.

  3. Ensure the batter is not too thin.

Fry and serve

  1. Just before frying, fold in the beaten egg whites until stiff.

  2. Fry in plenty of butter until golden brown.

  3. Serve with apple sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, and whipped whites lighten it so the pancakes stay tender.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pancakes together as they cook.
Sweet milk
Supplies the liquid that hydrates the flour and sets the batter's consistency.
Butter
Fat for frying that promotes browning and a golden, rich crust.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites just before frying. Beaten whites trap air that expands with heat and gives lightness. If they sit too long or are overmixed, they deflate and the pancakes turn out dense and flat.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, butter, sauce):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, butter, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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